Opportunity Areas: Stoke-On-Trent - Out and about

On the shores of beautiful Rudyard Lake, in Staffordshire, children from Little Ducks nursery are exploring. While they walk around they keep bumping into an elderly couple, who are pleased to see the children appreciating the local environment. Before they leave, the lady offers nursery staff some money to buy ice-creams for the children. She tells staff her husband is suffering from dementia, but as a result of seeing and interacting with the children he is having a ‘better day’ than he has had for a very long time.

Little Ducks is one of 64 PVI settings in Stoke-on-Trent taking part in a novel Exploring the Wider World project, delivered by Early Education and funded by the Stoke-on-Trent Opportunity Area. Staff have taken part in training to help them make the most out of outings, and have also been able to choose from a wide menu of experiences, including a mobile farm, a visit from a storyteller, and a visit to a barge. As the Rudyard trip shows, it is not only children who are benefiting from the new experiences.

‘The Opportunity Area board wanted something purely for PVIs, because there were other projects targeting schools,’ says Caroline Eaton, Early Education project lead. ‘EYFS results for Understanding the World weren’t where they would like them to be, and they wanted to widen children’s life experiences while helping close the language gap between less advantaged children and others.’

Nearly a third - 29 percent – of children don’t achieve or exceed the expected standard against the Understanding the World area of learning, and children in the most deprived wards are least likely to do so. The Opportunity Area invested £9,000 in research from Staffordshire University to find out what was holding children back. Barriers were a lack of training opportunities; pressure on budgets limiting opportunities for outings; limited time available to build relationships with members of the community; a lack of opportunity to share best practice; and language difficulties when engaging parents in children’s learning. The research found practitioners were particularly lacking confidence to support children to understand similarities and differences between features of their own environments. A third of practitioners were not at all confident that their setting could support children in this aspect of the ELG.

The £43,200 project, running between April 2019 and March 2020, aims to remove some of these barriers. All settings taking part receive free training depending on the needs of staff and children. ‘Some training focused on building confidence to take children out, while other settings were already confident, so we might look at extending learning from an outing, or engaging parents,’ says Ms Eaton.

The visits and experiences, often related to Stoke’s history and culture, will no longer be funded when the project ends. But the links made between settings and their local communities will be a long-lasting legacy, Ms Eaton believes.

‘We didn’t want everything to end when the funding ended, so as well as focusing on outings and visits that have to be paid for, we also focused on making the most of what is on your doorstep,’ she says. ‘Everyone has got a postbox or some rough ground nearby. These are everyday experiences which as adults we might pass by but for children they are fresh and exciting.’

Daily life

At Hanford Nursery every age-group now has a ‘Lead Person for Going Out’, with practitioners in the baby room sourcing extra pushchairs from parents so babies can explore as well. The setting sent out letters to local residents, suggesting they stop and chat if they saw them in the street, and asking for ideas of interesting things the children might like to see. As a result the local window cleaner got in touch to say when he would be in the area and the children went to watch him at work, while another resident called to say they were having bags of gravel delivered by crane and the children went along to watch and take photographs.

Nikkii Flintham, nursery manager at Field House Day Care Nursery, says children have enjoyed playing with a large map of the local area, provided by the project. ‘All I did was unroll the map, and the children were very enthused, and began building structures based on the streets where they live, after we had discussed where nursery was and where their streets were,’ she says. ‘They used all types of open-ended resources, egg boxes, sticks and branches, Duplo, baskets, tubes. It was amazing. They also created a large boat with chairs and boxes to represent the canal which isn't that far from us. This activity and the extension of it went on for quite a few days.’  Field House also organised a staff meeting involving a torchlight treasure hunt through local streets, with two teams of practitioners encouraged to compete against each other to find local points and do specific tasks. ‘The staff found details about the area around nursery to share with parents as we walk in to town,’ says Ms Flintham.

The strong focus on PVI settings may have something to do with the presence of Rose Dingle, manager of Rosy Cheeks Nurseries, on the Opportunity Area board. ‘It is very important there is representation from across the sector,’ she says. ‘PVIs can sometimes be missed off, so having a representative with a loud voice made sure the children we are educating would benefit from the money.’

The OA has teamed up with Stoke-on-Trent college to improve employability for childcare students. ‘We made sure every student completes a First Aid course as part of their qualification,’ says Ms Dingle. Every PVI has also been able to access training in mental health first aid, enabling practitioners to identify mental ill health issues, and to recognise warning signs of mental ill health.

EYFS

In Stoke-on-Trent the percentage of all pupils achieving a good level of development in the EYFS was 65.1 per cent in 2016, in comparison to a national average of 69.3 per cent. Improving EYFS outcomes is the first priority of the Opportunity Area, which has so far spent £281,667 on this area.

Communication and language is a key issue for early years settings throughout the country, and Stoke-on-Trent is no exception. ‘In some areas on entry to nursery there are still as many as 59 per cent of children behind with their language skills,’ says Ms Dingle. Since April 2018 the Opportunity Area has funded specialist support to 42 primary schools and all the city’s PVIs. The project has developed an audit tool to provide a baseline for schools to develop an individual action plan.

A parent ambassador project asks parents to share key messages about early communication. Meanwhile the six-week Speech, Milestones, Interaction, Learning and Expression (SMILE)  programme, run by Speech and Language Therapy Assistant Practitioners from Midland Partnership Foundation Trust,

works with parents of children with delayed speech, language and communication identified at their two-year-old check.  ‘The groups are fun ways of showing parents simple activities to try at home to build early language skills,’ says Ms Dingle. The SMILE groups supported 89 children in the last quarter.

Another project is focusing on phonics and maths. ‘The primary aim was to establish and strengthen relationships between staff in schools and settings, leading to improved transition for children and their readiness to enter school,’ says Ms Dingle. ‘Settings and schools were encouraged to meet collaboratively to discuss and share good practice.’

Disadvantage

In Stoke-on-Trent the number of children eligible for pupil premium exceeds the national average, but take-up of free education for two-year-olds is below the national average. Some 15 per cent of eligible three- and four-year-olds attend fewer than the available 15 hours, most of them in the most deprived areas.  The Opportunity Area has invested £5,520 in finding out why parents are not taking up the offer and encouraging them to do so, through a communications campaign and stay and play sessions.

‘Stoke-on-Trent City Council has been involved with all of the projects funded by the Opportunity Area to support Early Years,’ says the city council’s cabinet member for Education & Economy, Janine Bridges. ‘The impact is already being seen with an increase in the good level of development in 2019, with the gap between the city and the national average decreasing this academic year. We will continue to support the sector to embed their new skills and understanding to ensure sustained improvements in the early years development of all of our children.’

Early Years Targets

• By 2021 Stoke-on-Trent will have significantly closed the gap between children in the city achieving a good level of development and their peers nationally.
• By 2021/22 at least 100 more children will have reached this level than was the case in 2016. By 2022/23, the city will have closed the gap entirely and will be in the top half of all local authority districts for pupils achieving a good level of development

Early Years Achievements

• The percentage of children achieving good level of development at the end of the EYFS has risen from 65.1 per cent in 2016 to 67 per cent in 2019
• The percentage of children achieving at least expected standard in Communication and Language, Reading and Writing rose between 2018 and 2019. The gap between results in Stoke and the national average fell in all cases during the same period
• 122 schools and settings have taken part in a phonics and maths project
• 64 PVI settings have taken part in the Exploring the Wider World project.
• Last term 1,100 children benefited from 84 experiences, including 660 stroking animals at a mobile farm, 139 visiting a barge, 150 enjoying a visit from a storyteller, 125 working with a ceramicist, 78 working with a local artist
• There have been 286 outings arranged by settings in addition to the experiences offered through the project